Friday, May 20, 2005

Nintendo @ E3 - DSpeak: VoIP via Nintendo DS

This is still just a concept demo, but it’s reportedly a working demo: DSpeak is basically Voice over IP calling using the wireless capabilities of the Nintendo DS. Using a connected headphone/microphone, DSpeak allows you to hold conversations with other DS users via WiFi, and the audio quality is reportedly “perfectly fine, as good as a mobile phone.” Plus, you get little Mario and Wario icons moving their mouths when you speak — come on, Vonage, how you gonna beat that? The software itself will be available as a free download, and the booth boy told us that they’ll be including headsets with DSpeak-compatible games (the headset will probably also be available for sale separately for some nominal fee). Otherwise that’s about all we know—we couldn’t squeeze a release date out of them, and no one at the Nintendo booth knew a damn thing about the actual technology they were demoing.